Photo pioneer George Eastman said, "Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth and you will know the key to photography." Belgian artist-photographer, conceptualist, and performance artist Lieven Neirinck knows exactly how to use that key to open our eyes.  His projects are diaries, a daily record of his life and times as, among many things, a father, teacher, book-lover, performer, and magician with light.  With his spots, floods, strobes, projectors, and pin lights, he pulls his subjects out of the shadows, representing and documenting his recovery from burnout — the effect of his living "too fast and too crazy," and his return to grounded connection, "to earth."  For Neirinck, each image is a performance, the frozen result of all the travel, inspiration, research, problem-solving, and craft that precede the shutter's click.  In his home studio, in empty rooms, parking lots, and dark corners found in his travels, this series tells a complex story of humility, gratitude, and humanity.  Introspective conceptual photography is sometimes too personal and too particular, meaningful only to its creator, but Neirinck skillfully illuminates his private experience in a way that encourages involvement and rewards every viewer's own looking inward. 

comment

Reviews